These models aren't digitally altered, they're digitally created

By Mary Ward

Last week, luxury fashion label Balmain debuted their three new brand ambassadors: Shudu, Margot and Zhi.

The women will join some of the biggest names in the business – Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner are both tied to the brand – to front the French fashion house's Fall/Winter 2018 campaign.

However, there is a key point of difference between Balmain's three new models and the rest of the "Balmain army": Shudu, Margot and Zhi aren't real.

Margo and Zhi. CGI models are now being used by leading fashion houses such as Balmain.

Photo: Instagram

The three "women" are CGI creations. They exist only as images, wearing digital versions of the brand's upcoming collection. But according to Balmain's creative director Olivier Rousteing – who calls the women his "virtual reality army" – these models are more than just a collection of pixels.

“I created the virtual reality army in the same way that I’m creating my collection,” he told Refinery29. “Being unique is really important because everyone has their own personality.”

Although Margot and Zhi are making their industry debut, this is not the first time Shudu, created by UK fashion photographer Cameron-James Wilson, has booked a job: with a growing Instagram following, earlier this year she was contracted to post pictures wearing lipstick by Fenty Beauty, the cosmetics company created by Rihanna.

(The post sparked backlash, with some upset that Fenty had contracted with a white man creating images of a black woman, instead of hiring a human black model.)

CGI models (from left) Margo, @shudu.gram and Zhi. CGI models are now being used by leading fashion houses such as Balmain.

Photo: Instagram

Other virtual influencers are emerging. This year's September Vogue featured a profile of Miquela, a CGI creation with 1.4 million Instagram followers. Miquela posts like any other social media influencer: "attending" film premieres, supporting causes like Black Lives Matter, and thanking designers for letting her "wear" their clothes (she was dressed by Alexander McQueen for her Vogue shoot).

Dr Jonathon Hutchinson, lecturer in online media at the University of Sydney, doubts social media users currently engage with virtual influencers in the same way as they do their human counterparts, due to their novelty factor.

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However, these creations should not be dismissed as a gimmick. For Dr Hutchinson, these Instagram accounts and brand ambassadors with ascribed personalities – pictorial creations ultimately managed by humans – are just the "first iterations" of what CGI personalities can be.

"Bots started out just finding information for us, but now they are integrating with artificial intelligence," he says. "And once that happens it's a completely different game. You might have CGI influencers who become agents in these spaces, who have the capacity to think and respond as a human would."

It all seems quite dystopian. But there is already a dark side to how people, particularly women, engage with fashion models. Extensive research has shown that the viewing of thin, beautiful women in fashion advertising has a negative impact on women's body image.

Models like Shudu, Margot and Zhi are obviously not real humans: are these totally unrealistic images better than those which alter the human form?

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Christine Morgan, CEO the Butterfly Foundation, says she believes CGI models could negatively affect body image in the same manner as any other altered or unrealistic image.

“Anything that alters our reality and disconnects us from the true human diversity of shape, size and appearance is a concern," she says.

A survey within the foundation's Insights in Body Esteem report, released this week, found 40 per cent of people compare themselves to others on social media, and 73 per cent wished they could change the way they look.

At a time when the fashion industry is starting to normalise diversity on the runway and in campaigns, these CGI models ultimately conform to the same tropes of conventional attractiveness – although Shudu, Margot and Zhi are not all white, they are all sample size –

“Let’s look at what we need to do to build body confidence instead of looking at a computer programmer’s concept of an ideal body.”